[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Bontis_Nicklecture.jpg” caption=”Associate professor Nick Bontis is a contender in the TVO Big Ideas’ Best Lecturer Competition 3. Photo courtesy of DeGroote School of Business.”]Imagine sitting in class. At the front of the room, your professor is pacing back and forth, talking a mile a minute, gesticulating wildly. A jug full of water sloshes violently in his right hand.

“This is all the knowledge in the world,” he says. In his left hand, he waves an empty glass. “This is your company.”

He splashes water into the glass, ice cubes clink. “What's that called? Recruitment. Input of human capital into the firm. But then this happens.” He tips the glass to take a drink, slurping noisily. “That's called attrition. Retirement, sickness, what have you. Bottom line, the level of intellectual capital in your corporation is not as high as you expected it to be.”

He tops up the glass. “What's that called? Succession planning. The definition of succession planning is the proactive input of human capital a priori to the human capital leaving the firm. The operative term is a priori which means before or as it's happening.”

He pours in a little more — and then a lot more. Water spills over the sides of the glass and forms puddles at his feet. Ice cubes skitter across the floor.

“What's that called? That is turnover. I don't like turnover.” His voice becomes shrill. “I get emotional when I talk about turnover. I look at you and I say what you doin' down there. I paid you, I coached you, I mentored you, and you repay me by landing on the floor? You've got to combat the problem of turnover, because everybody's walking out the door with knowledge, with information that's good for the firm. So I get desperate.”

He drops to his knees, pulls out his tie and begins sopping up the water. He captures the rogue ice cubes — “Those are the really smart ones” — and returns them to the glass. He wrings his tie out into the glass. “This process. What's that called? Exit interviews. Companies need to be doing exit interviews, and they need to ask one question and one question only. What do you know that nobody else knows?”

This is knowledge management with associate professor Nick Bontis.

Known for his unflagging energy and his compelling classes, Bontis, who teaches in the DeGroote School of Business, is one of 10 finalists competing in the TVO Big Ideas' Best Lecturer Competition 3. The Best Lecturer Competition, now in its third year, galvanizes the post-secondary community and plays an important role in raising awareness about the province's great educators.

Bontis is well known for his high energy, interactive, problem-based teaching approach and his innovative use of technology and simulations in the classroom. In 2007, he won three outstanding teaching awards simultaneously for the undergraduate program, the MBA program and the campus-wide President's Award for Excellence in Instruction. Maclean's magazine has identified him as one of McMaster's most popular professors for six years in a row.

“He exudes relentless energy and passion… delivering lectures that are engaging, entertaining and cutting edge. He is always ready and eager to create a learning environment that is educational, challenging and always welcoming,” says one of Bontis' MBA students.

Bontis and the other nine finalists will deliver complete lectures on Big Ideas over five weeks beginning March 1. Viewers will vote and ultimately decide who will be Ontario's next Best Lecturer. The winner's institution will receive a $10,000 TD Meloche Monnex scholarship.